The Man in Black

1950

Crime / Mystery / Thriller

6
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 80%
IMDb Rating 5.9/10 10 489 489

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Plot summary

A woman conspires to steal her stepdaughter's inheritance following the mysterious death of her millionaire husband.

Director

Francis Searle Photo
Francis Searle

Top cast

Gerald Case Photo
Gerald Case as Doctor
Sidney James Photo
Sidney James as Henry Clavering
Sheila Burrell Photo
Sheila Burrell as Janice
Anthony Forwood Photo
Anthony Forwood as Victor Harrington
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
714.4 MB
986*720
English 2.0
A
Subtitles us  
24 fps
1 hr 17 min
Seeds 2
1.43 GB
1480*1080
English 5.1
A
Subtitles us  
24 fps
1 hr 17 min
Seeds 2

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by CinemaSerf 5 / 10

It's interesting to see Sid James play a

It's interesting to see Sid James play a straight (albeit brief) role for change in this simple little crime thriller. He is a wealthy chap with a rather venal second wife and step-daughter. His obsession with mysticism leads, one evening, to a risky experiment and it all goes wrong... We have no absence of potential culprits as his new family try to drive his daughter out of her mind so they can inherit his fortune. Betty Ann Davies is good as the scheming the wife, with Sheila Burrell likewise as her ghastly, grasping, daughter all manipulating poor old "Joan" (Hazel Penwarden) in a decently paced mystery. Sadly the ending is writ a bit large from fairly early on, and that makes it all sag a bit - maybe Francis Searle could have tightened it up by a quarter of an hour? It's still an enjoyable watch, though - with a slightly more sophisticated script (that may owe something to it's BBC radio heritage). It is rarely shown nowadays, but is worth seeing through if you encounter it.
Reviewed by John Chard 7 / 10

Oakfield Towers ... The Scene... The Man in

Oakfield Towers ... The Scene... The Man in Black is directed by Francis Searle and Searle co-writes the play with John Gilling. It stars Betty Ann Davies, Sheila Burell, Sid James, Anthony Forwood and Mollie Palmer. Music is by Frank Spencer and Rupert Grayson and cinematography by Cedric Williams. Out of Hammer Films, this adaptation from a radio series is a tight little "Gaslight" suspenser. Story basically entails a young lady recently bequeathed her father's inheritance, who is at the mercy of scheming family members intent on ensuring she doesn't get what's rightfully hers. The core of the plot is quickly revealed to us, so there is no pretention as to this being a supernatural dark house spooker - which is on the cards given the splendid shadowy and creaky setting of the Oakfield Towers mansion. Story moves through a number of pleasant surprises, murder and intrigue prominent, motives straight and sketchy depending on certain characters' involvements, and thankfully the final run in has some weighty surprise value as well. It's all very correct in dialogue and a little camp in places, but it's clever in its telling and nicely performed by the cast. 6.5/10
Reviewed by clanciai 7 / 10

A poor heiress exposed at the mercy of a beautiful stepmother and her vicious daughter

This is a chamber drama of a family, as a rich dying father leaves everything to his only daughter, who is beset by her stepmother and her daughter (who then isn't even her half-sister), who of course are interested in the inheritance, as the father only leaves them morsels. The intrigue is how they will go about it, and their method is very similar to that of "Gaslight". There is an old servant of the manor, usuallly drunk, however, whom they don't bother to count with, which is their mistake. They don't get any help either from the opportunist wooer, who thinks it will be easy to marry the heiress for her money, even though he accidentally succeeds in killing the old drunk. The whole thing gets increasingly messed up, and the greedy ladies gradually lose control of what is happening. But it is a very intelligent intrigue, all the absurd turnings of the tale are quite logical when you analyse them, but it could have been made a so much better film. As it is, it is too much condensed, which makes it superficial. A man like Hitchcock would have been needed to film a drama like this, he wouldn't have missed the opportunity for suspense and surprise, but taken better care of the vital crucial moments.
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